Are We There Yet?

By Lea Tyrrell

Some dismal economic reports out for Long Island this week. Over the past year the Island has lost more than 21,000 jobs in the private sector. And in the last 3 months alone - New York State has lost more than 100,000 jobs. The state labor department says many of those jobs were in retail and construction. 

Add to that a report out by a Manhattan-based appraisal firm that found median home sale prices on Long Island are down 6.2% for the third quarter of 2008, compared to the same time in 2007.  So it sure looks like we haven't hit bottom yet, and it seems no one can really tell if we're anywhere near it.

So how long will it take for us to get out of this economic free-fall?  Predictions range from the middle or end of this year to 2010 or 2011.  Long Island Association Economist Pearl Kamer tells News 12 that even if we get a stimulus package out of Washington, Long Island won't feel the bounce from it until late this year or next year.

But the most dire prediction I've heard came on a recent Long Island Talks.  Economist Dr. Thomas Conoscenti of NYU said we could be stuck where we are now for four or five years if the economic recovery plan Washington is putting together doesn't work.  And that's another thing to think about. What if all this doesn't work?  Is that even possible?  How can you spend nearly a trillion dollars on an economic bandage and not fix the problem?  But in covering both politics and this economy for a while now, I've learned that anything is possible.  I hope in this case, though, logic prevails.

Comments

[John]

We have no manufacturing, people overseas can provide services cheaper than we can, and we're coming out of the burst of a real estate bubble (engineered by Alan Greenspan to dodge the dot-com bubble burst). That's the problem. Since we don't produce anything (as a country, I mean), the only way to make money is through investment (essentially gambling).

And it doesn't help that we're taxed at every turn.

The proper short-term solution is to cut taxes. None of this rebate garbage, no trickle-down theory, and no more bailouts. Then companies can afford to expand or hire, and people can afford to buy things or start businesses.

The long-term solution is to manufacture good products that can't be easily duplicated overseas. Remember when we had a trade surplus? Nobody worried about a collapsing economy back then, did they? There's a reason for that.

Unfortunately, the government's plan is backwards and based on keeping the rich people rich--unsurprising, considering they and their contributors are rich, for the most part. So, they're bailing out failed industries with taxpayer money, hiking taxes, and continuing the tax credits for exporting jobs. They can spend as much as they want, but unless you own a bank, you're not going to see a big change.

If Long Island is going to get out of this quickly, it's not going to be by relying on Washington to swoop in and save us, but rather by industrious people getting their hands dirty and investing their effort into bringing industry back physically to our home towns.